


I'm on a Warpath, Baby

by coffeehanjan



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Ronan centric, Tumblr Prompt, but I see this as canon divergence bc Ronan is initiating contact with him, you could take this to be before Gansey & Ronan befriend Adam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6449545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeehanjan/pseuds/coffeehanjan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: </p>
<p>"I thought you were my friend who's just done something awful to me because you look similar from behind so I stormed up to you and shoved you from behind while calling you an asshole"</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>Gansey divulges Ronan's hiding spot to Declan (because this is getting Ridiculous) and Ronan is on the warpath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm on a Warpath, Baby

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my very first foray into the TRC fandom. I've read like 50 million Pynch fics but have yet to complete one of my own. I was born and raised in rural Virginia, so this series means so so much to me. Sometimes I even have a hint of an Adam accent, haha!
> 
> I stumbled across a list of really fun prompts on Tumblr, so as a personal challenge to myself I'm going to try to do a lot of them! Here's the first of (hopefully) many!

Ronan was on a warpath.

 

(When was he not, though?)

 

After going to great lengths to avoid the Wrath of Declan(TM), somehow, miraculously, he'd been found huddled in a dark corner of the Aglionby student library by his older brother anyway.

 

The only reason it hadn't come to blows, really, was the location. Ronan had banked on the notion that no one would think to look for him  _here_ , of all places, so he hadn't even considered a proper escape route. Nor did he think about how he wouldn't be able to punch Declan in the library.

 

So Ronan, whose pride was wounded and whose fists urged to take his frustration out on something,  _anything_ , found himself stalking across campus in search of an outlet.

 

Uniformed boys scattered in all directions each time Ronan stomped too close. One glance at his poisonous snarl, the taut line of his muscled shoulders, the sharp curve of his tattoo, was more than enough warning to  _get out of the way_. 

 

Ronan couldn't see anyone, so blinded by his rage. His mind raced with a million  _fuck you_ 's and the satisfying crunch of his knuckles hitting bone and the sharp, metallic tang of blood on his tongue. His pulse burned in his veins, threatening to ignite his skin and turn him into a walking bomb.

 

How could Declan have known where to find him? He clearly hadn't left campus to search all of Ronan's usual haunts - class had only been over for ten minutes by the time he was standing before Ronan's hunched figure between the historical biographies and reference manuals, arms crossed and lips pulled back in a sneer. Ronan had, of course, skipped class - but the 11 missed calls from Declan had kept him from speeding off to Monmouth or St. Agnes or the abandoned strip mall at the edge of town. And yet, Declan had found him like a Ronan-seeking missile. As if he'd been tipped off to the coordinates.

 

As Ronan pushed past a cluster of soccer players headed out to the practice fields, his eyes caught sight of a mop of brown hair hunched over a book or something. The figure's back was turned to Ronan, where it sat perched on a short stone wall on the campus lawn, but something clicked in his mind at the sight.

 

Fucking  _Gansey_.

 

Declan often turned to Gansey for help with wrangling Ronan and his mess of emotions. A few weeks back, Ronan had joked with Gansey that if he ever wanted to disappear, he could just hide in the library because "honestly, everyone knows I would never set foot in there willingly."

 

A jolt of something not quite anger and not quite grief struck Ronan in the sternum at the thought of Gansey's betrayal. Because to Ronan, in his black-and-white view of the world, that's what this was. People were either on Ronan's side or against him, and selling him out to his contentious older brother was decidedly  _against_ him.

 

His strides grew more purposeful as he made his way across the lawn to an unsuspecting Gansey. The sky was bright and cloudless, and a cool breeze kept the relentless Virginia sun from feeling too oppressive.

 

But Ronan couldn't register anything except  _Fuck you Gansey fuck you Gansey fuck you -_

 

"Thanks a lot for selling me out, Dick!" He growled the words out through gritted teeth. The boy in front of him stiffened in surprise, and the tiny reaction sparked the dry kindling in Ronan's chest into a full flame in an instant. "I thought you had my back, asshole! You and Declan can fuck off together so I never have to see your stupid fucking faces again!"

 

At this, the boy's face had begun to turn, but Ronan's hands were already moving, shoving the broad back off the wall. The surprised yelp, however, was too round and rough. The glimpse of jaw too soft, nose too pronounced, skin too honey-brown, to be Gansey.

 

Ronan could feel himself gaping the second his hands had made contact with the sun-warmed back of this not-Gansey. He watched the boy tumble in slow motion to the grass below. The foreign emotion of remorse washed over him as the boy's tanned and freckled arms rose to protect his face from invisible blows.

 

Ronan stood in shocked silence for a few moments, chewing his leather wrist bands while his mind raced. Only this time, the hurt and betrayal was replaced with guilt and embarrassment. God, when had Ronan last felt embarrassed about anything?

 

"What the  _fuck_." The words, no more than a quiet huff of breath, really, cut through Ronan's thoughts like a knife.  _Oh no,_ he thought.  _No no no._

 

Because those words carried the unmistakable Henrietta accent - the drawn-out dip of the 'a' in 'what' that sounded more like 'uh', the similarly hollowed out 'uh' in 'fuck'.

 

"Shit," Ronan breathed out. "Parrish. Fuck, I... I thought you were Gansey."

 

Adam Parrish, all golden and earthen tones in the afternoon sunlight, finally lowered his arms. His fine, delicate fingers grasped the grass below him as he sat up. His bright blue eyes were guarded, his brow pulled down as he assessed Ronan. 

 

Heaving a sigh, Adam replied, "In what universe could  _I_ be mistaken for someone like  _Gansey_?"

 

The words carried much the same scorn Ronan was currently directing towards himself, only for very different reasons. While Adam's tone said  _How could you ever mistake this Henrietta dirt for the king of Aglionby himself?_ all Ronan could think was  _How could I not have recognized the quiet, unearthly beauty of Adam Parrish?_

 

Ronan spent just about every waking moment of calculus and Latin classes committing Adam to memory. His fine cheekbones, the dusting of freckles over his nose, his plush lips, chapped from the mountain wind. The sharp jut of his collarbone peeking above his uniform, the curve of his neck when he leaned over his class work. And his hands... God, his hands. Ronan's fixation on them - delicate, bony, dry, with short clipped nails and smudges of grease and dirt - was turning into an obsession. He longed to hold them. Kiss them. Lick them. Never let them go. The more Ronan stared, the more he wanted to punch something. He'd taken instead to vandalizing the school desks with crass Latin jokes and carvings of angry-looking crows. Gansey always raised his eyebrows but wisely kept silent.

 

Adam was still staring up at Ronan from the ground; Ronan shifted his weight and dropped his wrist from his mouth, uncomfortable under this beautiful creature's scrutiny. 

 

"Could've fooled me. 98% of the time Gansey has his nose buried in some old ass book." Ronan felt his jaw tighten as he tried to think of a way to fix this. If Adam didn't hate him already, he sure as hell did now.

 

"Yeah, well, the lack of a Rolex should've tipped you off, Lynch."

 

Ronan felt his heart stop beating for a second before it picked back up at twice the speed it had been pounding before. Adam knew his name.  _Adam knew his name._ He knew immediately that when he dreamt tonight he'd be able to hear that honey-sweet drawl stretch his name into two syllables. _Ly-inch_. God.

 

Ronan swallowed his straying thoughts with a quick laugh and extended his hand out to Adam before he could overthink it. "Nah, Gansey's more of a Cartier guy, believe it or not."

 

Adam looked at Ronan's hand as if it might bite him before slowly taking it into his own and pulling himself up. Ronan wished the ground would swallow him up whole because Adam's hand was in his and it was Not Okay.

 

Adam let go of Ronan's hand to brush the grass and dirt off his pants, his lips curved into a wry smile. "Too damn expensive, either way."

 

Ronan bent down to pick up Adam's books, if only to hide the flush rising to his damnably pale cheeks and the tremor that wracked through his hands. He wished Declan was here so he could punch his stupid smug face instead.

 

"Oh, you don't have-" Ronan's sharp glare cut Adam off as he handed his Latin textbook back. Adam hurried to take the books back and conceal the bright red 85 that was sticking out from between the pages. Their gazes met and suddenly Adam hunched in on himself again.

 

Ronan cleared his throat. "That last pop quiz was pretty brutal, wasn't it?" Adam's eyes snapped back up to his, and he pulled his test close to his chest, out of Ronan's view. "I mean, sometimes I think Whelk is just fucking with us, you know? I swear he takes points off for being too good at Latin. Resentful bastard."

 

Adam scoffed. "Oh please, like you've ever gotten anything lower than a 95 in that class."

 

Ronan smirked, all sharp edges and promise of thrill, as he dug around in his bag. He shoved a crumpled paper into Adam's hands. "Read it and weep, Parrish."

 

Adam's eyes widened just a fraction, but the sight of it made Ronan's heart soar. "85!? What!? But... How? You're the top of the class!"

 

Ronan plucked the paper from Adam's hands and shoved it back in his bag. "Like I said. Whelk's a petty dickbag."

 

"Huh." Adam's gaze had turned assessing, like he was performing a risk analysis of Talking to Ronan Lych - 90% chance of getting punched, 8% chance of getting drop-kicked, 2% chance of eliciting an amused smirk.

 

Ronan felt like tipping that assessment on its head. Like he wanted to surprise Adam, to show him that he wasn't just a walking set of teeth.

 

"Wanna compare tests? Gansey's so fucking godawful at Latin that it wouldn't do any good. But you..." Ronan let the words hang in the air, let Adam draw his own conclusion.

 

Adam's eyes flicked down to Ronan's bag, then back up. He swallowed, licked his lips, and Ronan was pretty sure he was going to die any second. "Uh, yeah... Sure. That sounds... Good."

 

Ronan pretended like the hand he clapped down on Adam's shoulder wasn't gentle as they settled back on the stone wall.

 

He could almost forget his anger towards Gansey when Adam bumped knees with him. Almost.


End file.
